What to Expect — Preparing for Your DEXA Scan

Before you book

You will complete a short health screening questionnaire as part of booking. It takes about a minute. It is there so that we can confirm the scan is appropriate for you before you drive out to us, rather than turning you away at the door.

Please tell us in advance if any of the following apply:

You are pregnant, or there is any chance you might be. DEXA scanning is not appropriate during pregnancy. This is not negotiable and we will ask you again in person.
You have recently had contrast dye, barium, or a nuclear medicine study. These interfere with the measurement. Allow at least seven days, and tell us the date so we can advise.
You have metal implants, a joint replacement, surgical hardware, a pacemaker or a retained device. These are usually fine — we simply need to account for them when reading your scan.
You are over roughly 6'2", or over the table's weight limit. We will let you know the exact figures for our scanner and there are established workarounds, but it is much easier to plan for in advance.

The day of your scan

What to wear

Comfortable clothing with no metal anywhere. Metal shows up on the scan and has to be excluded from the analysis, which costs you accuracy in exactly the region it sits.

Good: leggings, joggers, a plain t-shirt, athletic wear, socks.
Avoid: jeans, anything with a zipper, rivets, metal buttons, buckles, hooks, or an underwire bra.
You will be asked to remove your watch, jewellery, glasses, belt, and everything in your pockets.
Bring socks. You will have your shoes off.

You stay fully clothed for the entire scan. Nobody asks you to change into a gown, and nothing touches you.

Eating, drinking and training

You do not need to fast. We would suggest:

No large meal in the two hours before your appointment.
Normal hydration — do not arrive deliberately dehydrated, and do not drink a litre of water in the car park either.
Skip your workout that morning if you reasonably can. Training shifts fluid into the muscle you just trained.
Nothing needs to change about your routine in the days before. One session in the gym does not move a DEXA number.

The single most useful thing you can do: be consistent.

The scanner's precision is only worth something if you do not throw it away with your own variables. Whatever conditions you scan under the first time — time of day, fed or fasted, before or after training — repeat them next time. A fasted Tuesday morning scan compared against a post-lunch Saturday scan will show you a difference that is partly just lunch.

Our suggestion: morning, before breakfast, before training. It is the easiest condition to reproduce for the rest of your life.

When you arrive

Check in. We confirm your screening answers in person, including the pregnancy question. It takes a minute or two.
Height and weight. Measured here rather than taken from memory, because the scan analysis uses them.
Metal check. Watch, jewellery, keys, phone, belt — all off and set aside somewhere safe.

The scan itself

You lie on your back on an open padded table. It is not a tunnel, there is nothing enclosed about it, and there is nothing to be claustrophobic in. If you have had an MRI and disliked it, this is not that.

A scanning arm passes slowly above you from head to foot. It never touches you. You will be positioned with your arms at your sides and your feet gently strapped in a neutral position — the strap is there to stop your feet rolling outward, nothing more.

Then you stay still and breathe normally for about ten minutes. That is the whole procedure. There is no injection, no sensation, and no noise beyond a quiet mechanical hum.

Your results

Your report is generated immediately and emailed to you before you leave the building. Not a summary — the complete set of measurements, as a file you can keep, print or forward.

We measure. We don't interpret.

Our technicians will gladly explain how the scan works and what each measurement is — what visceral fat means as a category, how regional lean mass is calculated. What they will not do is tell you what your particular numbers mean for your health, whether they are good or bad, or what you should do about them.

That is not us being unhelpful. Interpreting measurements in the context of your medical history is clinical judgement, and it belongs with your physician rather than with a technician improvising at the end of an appointment. Every operator in this category should draw that line. Not all of them do.

The report is yours — take it to your physician, your dietitian, your trainer, or nobody at all. It does not live behind a login you have to keep paying for.

Afterwards

There are no after-effects and no restrictions of any kind. Eat, train, drive, go back to work. Nothing about the scan requires recovery.

For tracking a change, come back in three to six months. Sooner than that and you are mostly measuring noise; much later and you have lost the chance to correct course if what you are doing is not working.

Getting here

We are opening in Duluth, Georgia, serving Gwinnett County and the north metro Atlanta area. We will publish the exact address, parking and accessibility details, and directions to the door as soon as the space is confirmed — and we will email everyone on the updates list at the same time.

Get opening updates Common questions →

What to expect, start to finish.